Lutfur Rahman’s proxy mayoral candidate tries to silence LW

Ohid Ahmed, Lutfur Rahman’s proxy candidate for the Tower Hamlets mayoral election in May, is threatening legal action against Love Wapping in an attempt to silence the free press.

For those of you who have not the slightest idea who Ohid Ahmed is here is his main claim to fame from when he was in power with Lutfur courtesy of the glorious Private Eye News(We are not worthy! Ed.)

Nice to have your street cleaned twice a day Ohid! Pity you did not insist on such a high level of hygiene in your own administration.

The turd way

Cllr. Ahmed is standing as the Tower Hamlets First / Tower Hamlets Independent Group / Aspire Party candidate as a proxy for former mayor Rahman who is banned from standing for public office until 2020.

The mistake that Ohid Ahmed / Lutfur Rahman makes is to think that he / they can attempt to intimidate the free press in the same way that their supporters try to intimidate voters during elections.

How wrong they are.

Tower Hamlets still a democracy – just

Despite the best efforts of Lutfur Rahman and his corruptly elected councillors Tower Hamlets remains a democracy where people can speak out against those in power without fear of retribution. Unlike a dictatorship where people cannot.

If you can’t be arsed to waste two minutes of your time reading the two pages of extremely costly drivel from Ohid and Lutfur’s solicitors – and why should you? – here are some edited highlights.

Blah blah blah….

“We have been instructed by Councillor Ahmed in relation to a series of articles that you have published on your Love Wapping website which contain highly defamatory blah blah blah….”

But apparently not. Oh and read Ted’s update on that particular story (bottom of this page) and find out who Ohid was actually having flu dinner with. How is the sheikh nowadays Ohid? Seen him recently?

Do readers please do not read those stories just to be on the safe side. Don’t want to harm any more feelings. Or do we?

Yes we do!

Trying to muzzle the free press

Which is why we are going to completely ignore the blah blah solicitors requests to:

Remove the four articles complained of

Confirm that you will not republish the allegations complained of

We are also completely ignoring the blah blah blah letter bit about as the letter being marked ‘not for publication’ that we can’t publish it without the written authorisation from blah blah solicitors blah and if we do so that will aggravate.

No! Sod off. You want to muzzle the press in exposing the rampant corruption that nearly ruined this borough? Forget it.

As for Ohid Ahmed ‘not being named in any judgment’? Wrong.

Here’s one mention of him:

257 Secondly, the Councillors who were not aligned with Mr Rahman became so exasperated that they proposed a motion to attempt to compel him to answer questions in the way that all other elected mayors answer questions. At this point, the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Ohid Ahmed shouted that the motion was only being proposed because Mr Rahman was Bangladeshi. Once more the cries of ‘racist’ were heard.

And here is a second:

599 Ms Chrissy Townsend was a polling station agent for the Labour Party in Lansbury Ward and spent the day visiting the five polling stations in her ward. She was obviously an apprehensive witness and her witness statement said ‘I have not come forward until now because I have been frightened of intimidation and threats.’ She said: “I went to Aberfeldy Culloden School. I went there with my husband in the car with a colleague who was also a polling agent. When we approached the area of the polling station in Aberfeldy Street we were besieged with canvassers for Tower Hamlets First, so much so that I felt intimidated. People were banging on windows with the THF leaflets. The situation was so bad that I thought there was going to be some sort of accident. I could not even open a door and we had to go down another road, Dee Street, where the polling station is situated where there were more people there. I noticed that Ohid Ahmed, the then Deputy Mayor, was present. I got out of the car and got into conversation with an elderly lady who told me that she was frightened to go in and vote and said that she had decided not to vote as a result of the intimidation. I offered to help her get to the polling station but she said she was going home.”

That is the reality of how Tower Hamlets First works.

Oh and just a quick reminder that these Tower Hamlets councillors are still serving despite being corruptly elected at the 2014 elections:
Councillor Ohid Ahmed (Lansbury)

LW Comment

Sending out legal threats is a regular Tower Hamlets First (THF) tactic. We rang Ted Jeory (he is on holiday somewhere hot and far away) and he told us that he had received many such threats from THF and specifically from Ohid Ahmed in the past.

An honour to be in such august company. Even though he is never in the country.

Residents and registered voters might want to remember that one of the THF offences in the election court was bribing sections of the press (viz hiring Channel S’s chief reporter while he was still a working journalist)

Ohid Ahmed’s attitude to press freedom seems to be to be about bullying critics into silence.

This speaks volumes about his attitude to the whole democracy thing.

No doubt blah blah blah solicitors will be reading this. Now that we have your attention, perhaps your client can make a full and transparent disclosure of all property assets he and his family own in the UK and overseas and provide the police with any information relating to any criminal activity during the Lutfur Rahman administration of 2010 – 2014 which is now the subject of a major criminal investigation?